In Newtown, vowing to remember while wanting to move on

Published 10:10 pm, Saturday, February 23, 2013

A memorial at a house near Sandy Hook Elementary School in Sandy Hook, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013 commemorates the lives of the 20 students and six staff members were killed at the school on Dec. 14.

A memorial at a house near Sandy Hook Elementary School in Sandy Hook, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013 commemorates the lives of the 20 students and six staff members were killed at the school on Dec. 14.

A car drives by a "Pray For Newtown" flag at the intersection of Main Street and Johnnie Cake Lane in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community is still recovering. less

A car drives by a "Pray For Newtown" flag at the intersection of Main Street and Johnnie Cake Lane in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff ... more

A "We Are Newtown" bumper sticker on a car in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community is still recovering. less

A "We Are Newtown" bumper sticker on a car in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and ... more

Natalie Jodan, of Sandy Hook, Conn., picks up "We Are Newtown" T-shirts for her friends at Big Y World Class Market in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community is still recovering. less

Natalie Jodan, of Sandy Hook, Conn., picks up "We Are Newtown" T-shirts for her friends at Big Y World Class Market in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 ... more

Big Y employees Kayla Rustici, left, of Sandy Hook, Conn., and Heather Bond, of New Milford, Conn. look over the "We Are Newtown" T-shirt stand at Big Y World Class Market in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community is still recovering. less

Big Y employees Kayla Rustici, left, of Sandy Hook, Conn., and Heather Bond, of New Milford, Conn. look over the "We Are Newtown" T-shirt stand at Big Y World Class Market in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. ... more

Cars drive under a "We're with you Newtown" sign in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community is still recovering. less

Cars drive under a "We're with you Newtown" sign in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary ... more

A discarded Sandy Hook commemorative ribbon lies in a gutter in Sandy Hook, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community is still recovering. less

A discarded Sandy Hook commemorative ribbon lies in a gutter in Sandy Hook, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook ... more

Ribbons for sale and personal donations lie in a basket in Everything Newtown souvenir shop in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community is still recovering. less

Ribbons for sale and personal donations lie in a basket in Everything Newtown souvenir shop in Newtown, Conn. on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members ... more

Sandy Hook T-shirts, ribbons, stickers and magnets are still for sale in some Newtown, Conn. stores on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the community is still recovering. less

Sandy Hook T-shirts, ribbons, stickers and magnets are still for sale in some Newtown, Conn. stores on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2013. It has been more than two months since 20 students and six staff members were ... more

Newtown First Selectwoman Pat Llodra, center left, and Newtown School Superintendent Dr. Janet Robinson, center right, receive a standing ovation inside the Hall of the House during Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's State of the State address the at the Capitol in Hartford, Conn., Wednesday, Jan. 9, 2013. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill) less

Newtown First Selectwoman Pat Llodra, center left, and Newtown School Superintendent Dr. Janet Robinson, center right, receive a standing ovation inside the Hall of the House during Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's ... more

Suzanne Davenport, of Sandy Hook, volunteered to photograph many of the items sent out of sympathy to Newtown from across the country and around the world. Here she is looking over some of the items at the municipal center. less

Suzanne Davenport, of Sandy Hook, volunteered to photograph many of the items sent out of sympathy to Newtown from across the country and around the world. Here she is looking over some of the items at the ... more

The road to Sandy Hook Elementary School, the one on Dickinson Drive, is blocked by a row of orange traffic cones. Beyond the cone sentries, the road is unplowed, still covered in unmarked snow.

This is Newtown now, 72 days since the shootings at the school, in a sense frozen in time.

It is difficult to move on.

This is "largely a town of women who don't wear mascara," said Sandy Hook resident David Ackert. Tears still flow unbidden.

Everywhere one goes in town there are visual reminders of Dec. 14, the day 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot his mother, Nancy, to death, drove to the school he once attended and with deadly aim of his mother's assault rifle slaughtered 20 first-graders and six educators.

Green and white ribbons are still wrapped around telephone poles along iconic Main Street and around lamps that line sidewalks in the quaint Sandy Hook section.

Walk into the Big Y supermarket on Queen Street to buy milk, and black T-shirts with a green ribbon and white lettering -- "we are Newtown 12.14.12" -- drape from hangers at cashier stations. $20 each.

Go to Walgreens for Advil and a basket of rubber green "Angels of Sandy Hook" bracelets sits on the counter at checkout. $5 each, cash only. Go to the deli in Sandy Hook for a cup of grilled cheese and bacon chowder and get a "Newtown Conn. Never Forget" decal when you put a $5 donation in a big glass jar.

The shirts, ribbons, posters, bracelets, decals and such are fund-raisers for many of the 27 causes and groups that have sprung up in response to the shootings. Some are for the families of the 26 victims, or for the surviving schoolchildren, or for a permanent memorial, or for the first responders.

There are so many groups that two weeks ago the leaders had a meeting to find out what each other was doing.

The dollars from posters and such are pocket change compared to the millions -- more than $12 million -- that have poured into this semi-affluent town.

While residents say they appreciate the generosity and support from around the world, the spotlight has created pressures that come with being the nation's symbol of grief and horrific violence.

People here vow to remember, yet they want to move on. There's a hint of fatigue in the voices of many.

"I'm getting tired and exhausted," said Michelle Ku, a mother of three young children, who filled seven buses for the March for Change rally at the Capitol on the two-month anniversary. "It's a weird dichotomy. After Dec. 14 we all said we wanted to spend more time with our kids, hug them harder. Yet we're spending less time with our kids and are pulled in different directions."

In some ways, Newtown seems as locked in time as the drawings of Santa Claus on cards stacked in the Mary Elizabeth Hawley Memorial room at the Old Town Hall. But some things have changed.

From the initial Kumbaya days after the shootings, when Newtown was united in profound grief and disbelief, the passage of weeks has revealed fissures in the community.

Neighbors disagree on whether to raze or enshrine the old Sandy Hook School. They disagree on which children's choir truly represents the town -- the students from Sandy Hook who brought tough football players to tears before the Super Bowl in New Orleans or the Newtown children who became a YouTube sensation with "Somewhere Over the Rainbow."

The school board is openly antagonistic with Schools Superintendent Janet Robinson, who is receiving state and national awards for her handling of the crisis. The friction goes back to last summer, when the board decided not to renew her contract beyond 2014. Relations were smoothed over for a while, but the board couldn't keep it up for long.

A Lutheran pastor was chastised by the synod's national leader for participating in an interfaith vigil in Newtown two days after the shootings. The leader later backed down and apologized, but the notion stung that anything could be unseemly about the community coming together for comfort. The vigil drew hundreds and hundreds, including President Barack Obama.

Lecture Hall A in Newtown High School was standing room only last Tuesday night, when one of the new groups -- Newtown Action Alliance -- asked a handful of state legislators to come and answer questions about the likelihood of gun reform.

People leaned against the walls and sat on the floor after all the chairs were taken. The atmosphere was intense but polite. No other issue is as polarizing in Newtown as gun control. After all, this is the headquarters of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

The shootings of innocent children and the educators trying to protect them prompted creation of a state task force and a commission to study possible gun-control measures. A hearing by the task force in Hartford earlier this month went on for hours. Many of the people testifying were self-proclaimed gun owners from Newtown. Not all agree on how much, if at all, regulations should be tightened.

At almost all these hearings and town halls and memorial events you'll find First Selectman Pat Llodra, a petite grandmother with a formidable command of facts and figures about her town. She gets standing ovations whenever she is introduced to large groups.

Llodra is just as likely to be seen with Obama or Vice President Joe Biden these days as she is with her town's public works director. And she's smart enough to know that she has a bully pulpit right now.

If a mass shooting can happen in Newtown, she said to Biden and the hundreds at Thursday's gun violence conference in Danbury, it can happen anywhere.

"Don't let the killing in Sandy Hook be just another event," she exhorted.

Some who live in Newtown do not want the town's name to be synonymous with tragedy. MaryAnn Murtha suggests using 12/14 as the reference, much like 9/11 refers to the World Trade Center terrorist attacks.

Others sense that Newtown's time in the national spotlight can be fleeting, though it has endured longer than other places. From the first days after the shootings, when resentment to the media was raw, townspeople have become accustomed to seeing the likes of Anderson Cooper and Rachel Maddow on the steps of Edmond Town Hall on Main Street.

"We have no choice but to own it," said Ackert, a dad with a first-grader in a private school and the founder of Newtown Action Alliance.

Volunteers hunch over one of the many new computers in the second-floor offices of Sandy Hook Promise at the intersection of Church Hill Road and Queen Street. They're responding to emails from the hundreds of people who are taking the "promise."

Everything, from the wooden desks to the high-tech computers, is new. And donated.

The office sparkles, even the conference room that seats about a dozen people and the separate office with flow charts on the wall. A tall vase holds pussywillow branches that have sprouted tender green leaves at the tips.

One morning about 10 days ago, two volunteers were trying to figure out how to merge documents so they could send thank-you letters.

At the front desk, a woman, wearing the black "we are newtown" T-shirt, buzzed in a visitor and answered the phone. The volunteers said they didn't really have time to chat; they wanted to make the most of every minute in the office.

Sprung from the aching need to do something, the group of locals initially called Newtown United announced its new name on Jan. 14. It's grown considerably. Now there is a five-member executive board and a 17-member core group. Its purpose is to foster dialogue in the aftermath, and to respond to the needs of the victims' families.

They want to keep the "drumbeat," keep issues in the forefront, said James Belden, one of the five key members.

While at a glance it may seem that the many groups are competing for attention or money, a closer look shows they have given many people a purpose, have provided a channel to turn grief into action.

And many of those involved speak of the great need to be part of a group. When they are away, they feel a tug-tug-tug to return.

"You get home and you want to be back," said Suzanne Davenport, a volunteer wearing angel earrings of pearl heads and emerald bodies. She was photographing the quilts, banners, posters, paintings in the municipal center to help document them.

The connection to the school is visceral. Davenport has lived in Sandy Hook for 22 years, her sons went to the school, and like so many she "knows those halls, knows that office."

The need to be involved in something greater is intense for many.

Belden took a long-term leave from his marketing job two weeks ago to volunteer full time with Sandy Hook Promise.

"I am lucky to be in a position to help," said the father of 11-year-old triplets. "The whole town needs to heal."

Ackert's activism began when he organized a group of 100 residents to travel to Washington, D.C., for the Jan. 26 March for Gun Control. It was empowering, he said.

Those who went felt the need to keep the action going, and so Ackert, with others, founded the Newtown Action Alliance. Just two weeks ago it formally organized, with a board of directors and an advisory committee; about 350 people have signed up. Ackert is chairman.

"Evidently a lot of people want to take action, get out of the house and do something," he said, "use their voice and power."

Heather Smith, a mother of two daughters in local schools, is part of an informal support group of moms that meets at Demitasse coffee shop in Sandy Hook over a mug of coffee or a cup of tea, chocolate milk for any children in tow.

She's volunteering with Sandy Hook Promise, along with her husband, Chris.

"It's a comfort working alongside everyone right now," Heather Smith said. "You go home and turn on the news and you see your town again. That's the reality.

"It's very surreal not changing, but we need for people to not forget."

Something good has to happen

There is some anger in Newtown.

In Edmond Town Hall, where townspeople go to watch discount movies or take their children to dance classes, one poster on the wall shows hearts bearing the names of the Sandy Hook victims arranged around a candle.

"May the hearts and souls of our lost loved ones still shine bright," the unsigned poster proclaims. Someone inked a large X over the heart with the name Nancy Lanza.

Newtown Town Clerk Debbie Aurelia is so incensed with the thought that someone might ask for a death certificate of the victims that she asked local legislators to advocate for a bill to seal death certificates of children.

But mostly those who live in Newtown say they want to focus on the future. To make something good come out of the horrible past. To be there for the Sandy Hook children and those at the other six schools.

On Monday, Katie Couric is coming to tape a show at Town Hall. Three parents and a husband of those who were killed on Dec. 14 will be on stage. Taped interviews with members of five other victims' families will be interspersed during the show.